un cahier perlé

POETRY

This poem was inspired by the documentary “Death in Gaza”, directed by James Miller who was killed by Israeli forces during the filming of the documentary.

Three dippy little boys from Gaza
Who paid no attention to their Master
Were asked to explain
Why they had missed the train
And sneered at curricular agenda.

Hisham spoke first
Tried to wipe off the dirt
Which shrouds every face in Gaza
He said that he found
It distracting, the sound
Of a car bomb’s muted narration,
And when his friends gathered round
To plastic bag every pound
Of flesh there was to be found,
He did lend a hand
Dissed the lay of the land
To bury a man with respect.

Yasser shuffled next,
His shoes were a mess,
His eyes were tired and old,
His voice was a croak
Half stuck in his throat –
But his story, it had to be told.

He had waited all night
In umbrageous fright
For bulldozers barking their arrival;
In the morning, the house
He was born in, was tossed,
Swallowed whole then slowly disgorged –
An homage, a tribute, a recital
To decontamination masked as survival.

Abdul was the last
Dippy boy in this class,
He was nervous and spoke in a whisper
Of Kasem his fifteen year old brother.

There had been a tank,
Started out as a prank –
Reckless boys in frayed dusty slippers
One rock flung for every Palestinian blister.

The pain stung, he felt dazed,
Tears were hot on Abdul’s face;
His dad shoved him aside:
“Martyrs’ kin never cry.
Bind the head with a band –
White on white, lifeless, bland,
Write his name on the wall
Describe his sacrifice to all.
No wail, no moan, no chant –
Honored soul, heavenly rank”

Abdul shuddered to recreate
Kasem’s cold sticky face;
Yasser’s brain was still awake
With panic sleep would quietly slake;
Hisham’s gaze stayed glued to his Master –
No reprimand, no harangue, a reminder:
“Back to work, please recite the next stanza,
Youthful dreams of martyrdom in Gaza”.

…

Shill for Bushby Mara Ahmed (Copyright 2005)

I wrote this poem to get out of the doldrums after Bush was elected for a second term.

Join the war on terror –
Kill foreigners in their own countries,
Join the Christian front
And ban Janet Jackson’s boobies,
Drill in Alaska,
Log in National Parks;
Clean air’s too expensive –
Power plants must never starve.

Your life will be better,
No, it shall be divine
If Dick Cheney’s Haliburton
Rebuilds Iraq and Palestine.

Just relax, get over it –
So what if Kerry tanked,
Bush got his mandate
We deserve to be spanked.

…

The Immigrantby Mara Ahmed (Copyright 2007)

Based on an idea in Kiran Desai’s novel, “The Inheritance of Loss”, Atlantic Monthly Press, New York, page 268: “And what if he continued on here? What would happen? Would he, like Harish-Harry, manufacture a fake version of himself and using what he had created as clues, understand himself backward?”

I am a box inside a box
Wrapped once, twice, three times,
My shape and hue have long been gone
I smell of moldy wine

I picked a name, all sweet and tame,
It rolls off the tongue
I am an immigrant, my friends
Resolved to soldier on

Are words ablaze and resonate
When stripped of their context?
Can I thus frame life’s arguments
With truth-perverting swell?

Am I real when I’m here
Do I exist in vain?
If no one can witness my form
What weight can I sustain?

I gather clues like pretty fruit
From those whose eyes I meet
I concentrate and obviate
Doubts reeking of defeat

What is pure and what is fake
And what is straight and true
Can I chew on absolutes
And let myth be manna dew?

The signs are tenuous and vague
Everything is borderline
I shall rethink, not retrograde
And collage myself in time.

…

How Ridiculous by Mara Ahmed (Copyright 2008)

Dedicated to all those Pakistani-Americans who support Martial Law in Pakistan because Pakistanis can’t “handle” democracy.

How ridiculous to sit astride this cushioned luxury,
Dress in silks, bathe in milk, drive nimble Mercedes,
Be free to vote and save your goat – lap up democracy,
When back at home it’s gone to hell, but that’s ok you see

Pakistanis deserve the stick and tear gas even more
They don’t know what is good for them and voting is a bore
The Military is what they need, even if they disagree
Musharraf is the antidote to all populist disease

The activists and journalists should stick to their routine
The judges too should shut their trap rather than vent their spleen
Who are they to pontificate the true meaning of respect
The Army is their Santa Claus, the War on Terror is the best!

Pakistanis are too juvenile, they can’t stomach democracy –
We, hyphenated Americans, have a gift for clarity.
It is a pretty nifty feat to skip town and move up
Those Desis who’ve been left behind just have to suck it up

How ridiculous to think we can be better than our home
We may be called American but Pakistan is in our bones
Much smart ass verbosity is strained from self-hatred –
Maybe such pea-brained arrogance needs a hit upside the head!

…

A MOMENTby Mara Ahmed (Copyright 2010)inspired by a moment of peace and quiet, during a hike on la mina trail, el yunque rainforest, puerto rico, february 2010.
i stand still, gently, silently
in measured quietude,
proportioned gratitude,
concentrated sharply on diffusion –
transport to another state,
another aspect, another day.
a voluptuous breeze slings by:
touching, caressing, inviting,
blending in lazy sunny ways
with little insistence on etiquette –
even-keeled and pleasant,
careless of its fluid seduction.
light enters into the cave,
a stranger in the cloud forest –
sliced, transmuted by giant fronds,
disembodied, unrepentant –
it tricks the eye, sheds bulky heat
to slyly mix with ribboned leaves.
i close my eyes and breath, deeply,
the rich verdant aroma of the forest,
the balmy breeze, the stunted heat,
the coqui’s song, shimmery and sweet,
i feel profoundly present, yet ethereal,
unbound by time-space coordinates
no mental maps, obsessive turns,
no skipping to predestined stops,
no clogged mind or arteries –
brain flushed of uneven thoughts;
clean, clean, clean and sparse
transfixed by a nascent star –
a concept, a prophesy,
caught in a fishing net, redeemed
from the spiral arms of galaxies,
the sheer folds of dusty dreams,
instinct a vestigial muscle no more
preens the feisty notion, attentively.
ah, i can breathe again,
yes i can truly breathe:
each gulp of air, squeeze of the lung,
each rise and fall, crest and trough,
timed to sweet perfection –
life is mysterious, magnificent.
connectedness, that weathered word;
brainwave to beating heart to ligament,
wind to tree, root to leaf, rich scented soil
to restless deeds and grounded feet –
absolved, absorbed and softly grieved,
maternal womb to earthy tomb.
connectedness, as sweet as cake,
muddies the water of time’s parade
the stagnant mix of past and present
holds court with future’s regal arc –
time dwells in synchronous bent,
a mobius strip of dawn and dusk.
if silence is the medium of poesie
then let me be fully soundless today
let me stand still in muted humility,
and partake of this soulful solitude
let me be one with the forest’s gravity,
i close my eyes to capture a moment.

…

Le Lever du Soleil by Mara Ahmed (Copyright 1983)

i won an international poetry competition organized by the government of turkey with this poem, when i was a kid. i was invited to turkey as a state guest for a week.